Inno Counter — the number on the shift sheet, measured instead of remembered

A production line’s output is usually a figure somebody writes down at the end of a shift. Here is what changes when a camera measures it, and what the camera refuses to claim.

The number on the shift sheet is a guess

On most production lines the day's output is a figure a supervisor writes down. It is written at the end of a shift, from memory and from a tally that was interrupted every time somebody needed something. It is the number that pays piece rates, prices a customer order and moves stock — and nobody can check it.

What a camera measures instead

Inno Counter watches the line and counts what crosses. You point a camera at the belt — an IP camera already on the network, or a USB one — draw a counting line or a counting zone on the picture, and teach it your product by clicking on it in a frozen frame or by uploading a few photographs. From then on, opening a production run in the ERP is the only action anybody performs: the camera finds the open run and attaches itself within seconds.

It counts the product, not movement

A motion counter counts a hand, a tray and a passing person. The smart filter checks each crossing against what the camera was taught, so those are rejected. Two loaves touching are two loaves, not one.

What it refuses to do

• It does not post stock by itself unless a branch switches that on — and where it is on, every run is stamped AUTOMATIC with no confirming name against it. Where counts drive pay or billing, leave it off.
• It does not estimate. If a camera was not watching, the run is reported as not counted rather than given a plausible number.
• It says when it stops trusting itself. If the filter starts rejecting most of what crosses, it declares itself degraded, counts anyway rather than silently under-reporting, and raises a warning on the fleet screen.

What it does when the internet does not

Counts are journalled locally and pushed when the connection returns. It also runs at below-normal priority with a capped thread count, because it usually shares a PC with the till — and a counter that makes the till slow is a counter somebody switches off.